Kabbalah

[Naomi]

A friend is very involved with the study of Kabbalah.

Does anyone have knowledge or experience concerning Kabbalahist and their belief structures?

[Pockey]

Well, Madonna follows it, so it must be pretty legit.

[Gail]

Isn't that what Madonna is into?

[Naomi]

Yes

[Robert]

I've read about it and it's just another salvation by works trip into heaven....

Like Ellen states: ”The principle that man can save himself by his own works lay at the foundation of every heathen religion….” [DA 35]

[Nicodema]

I question how much Madonna really knows about Kabbalah.

Kabbalah originally was Hebrew mysticism, passed on as an oral tradition. At some point scholars began to write down its teachings into books. If I was more up to snuff on my history of all such things I could rattle off the names of the scholars and the books they are known for, such as the Sefir Yetzirah (one that I remember offhand). But it's been awhile since I was into it.

One of the main teachings of Kabbalah is something called the Tree of Life which consists of 10 sephiroth ("spheres") and 22 paths between them. The diagram resembles the DNA helix which is interesting because it was devised long before DNA was discovered. The ten sephiroth represent ten stages of emanation or creation, from Kether, the Crown, to Malkuth, the Kingdom. The 22 paths tend to correspond to archetypal forces. The schema is pretty elaborate and provides an excellent framework for mapping life experiences and spiritual experiences.

I personally would not term Kabbalah a "salvation by works trip" because it does not purport to offer "salvation" as we understand and employ the term. However, the notion does exist of "climbing" the Tree of Life experientially and thus attaining to various levels of spiritual experience. So in that sense it could be said to be a "works trip" but then again, so is every religion on the face of the earth, including Christianity as it is commonly practiced by most people.

At one time I believed that the schools of the prophets established in the Old Testament taught prospective prophets the Kabbalah. I certainly believed that through knowledge of the Tree of Life, another realm could be accessed through which prophecy and other spiritual gifts could be made manifest. But that was when I was into occultism, and I no longer remember everything that went into my thinking back then. I seemed to be connected to forces that caused me to know things I would have no other way of knowing, and with that came a natural knowledge of all things occult that I didn't even need to study, I just automatically understood how it all worked when I practiced it. So I can't really say for sure how valid those ideas are since they come from a time in my life that I can't really access anymore. (Sorry for rambling)

[Bravus]

BTW, traditionally only men over 40, in good standing at their local synagogue and well respected in the community would have been permitted to study Kabbalah, and they would have had to know Hebrew fluently.

[Nicodema]

Studying Kabbalah "illegitimately" is an interesting way to become acquainted with Hebrew ...

Incidentally, Hebrew gematria is a part of Kabbalah as well, I think. Gematria is the process of adding up the sums of letters to derive a number for a word or name or phrase. The letters are assigned numerical values according to their ancient use -- in other words they would have been used as numbers prior to the adoption of the Arabic numeral system. Both Hebrew and Greek used their alphabets to stand for numbers and this is where gematria comes from. It is to Gematria that John the Revelator refers when he speaks of "those who have wisdom" reckoning the number of the Beast to be 666.